By taking your own measurements you will be able to receive price quotes with out having anyone come out to you home. You also will be able to get quotes from several company's based on the exact same measurements. Please be aware they will treat your measurements as draft. The granite contractor will have to come out and take actual measurements when you are ready to move forward with the granite job.
Things to keep in mind when measuring your countertop
Make sure you measure twice. The best way I found is to draw out the kitchen, then measure it. After you have measured it and wrote it down, ask someone else to take measurement and tell you what they are reading as they are measuring that way you can look at your drawing and see if your measurements agree with what they say.
When you are taking measurements, make sure to measure from the wall out to the end of the countertop. (Not from the backsplash to the end of the countertop, this measurement will be over an inch off. )
Put a symbolic marks for your edging and backsplash, and provide a key to let them know what it means.
When you are marking your drawing make sure to include where your current edging is on the countertop. You will need theses measurements to get an accurate quote. Use "X" to show where you want your highly polished edging.
Make sure to add in how high you want your backsplash to be. In our drawing we put the backsplash is to be 4" high. When you are taking the measurements for the backsplash you should take in to consideration the thickness of your current countertops. In most cases if you are going from Formica to granite you will want to add one inch to your backsplash height. Formica is usually thicker than 1 ¼ granite, since it is thicker your granite will sit lower. You will want to add the inch to make up the difference between your old countertop backsplash and the new granite countertop backsplash.
You can estimate where the seams will be after you draw out your countertop on paper and take all the measurements. On average granite slabs are 120" long by 60" wide. Some granite slabs are bigger and some are smaller, keep that in mind. To be sure, it is best to plan the seams after you pick out your actual granite slabs and have them on hold for you. You will also have to keep in mind that some granite is directional. Meaning that the pattern flow in one direction. Your seams may have to be moved because of the directional pattern.
If you are measuring for a circle, curved, or diagonal piece, measure to the furthest points and treat it as if it was a square or rectangle and write down those measurements.
Now that you have your countertop measured you need to figure out how many square feet and lineal feet you have. Square feet refers to how many square feet of granite there will be, this will include your countertops and backsplash. Lineal feet refers to how many feet of polished edges there will be, this will only include your countertops and not your backsplashes.
To begin you will want to look at the first drawing above so you can see the drawing we did. In our example you would want to start with the piece that is 97" * 25" (sink piece), then move on to the next of 81" *25" then to 24" *25" then to the island of 30" * 36". Then you would want to add the backsplash in. To do this you would add 97" *4" then 105.5" *4" and the last piece at 24" *4".
You will have to make sure you enter values that are square or rectangles in shape to get the proper sq. ft estimates. Also be sure you don't over lap in two places, if you do it the estimate would not be accurate. An example of that would be to enter in 97" *25" and 105.5" * 25" the correct way is to enter in 97" *25" and 81" * 25". But for the back splash you will need to enter it in as 97" *4" and 105.5" * 4" because the backsplash goes all the way.
To get square feet you will use the following formula
Width in inches * Length in inches / 144
So if you were to calculate the measurements above as follows you will also arrive at 50 square feet.
97" * 25 / 144 = 16.84 rounded up to 17 Square Feet
81"* 25"/ 144 = 14.06 rounded down to 14 Square Feet
24" * 25"/ 144 = 4.17 rounded down to 4 Square Feet
30" * 36"/ 144 = 7.50 rounded up to 8 Square Feet
97" * 4"/ 144 = 2.71 rounded up to 3 Square Feet
105.5" * 4"/ 144 = 2.93 rounded up to 3 Square Feet
24" * 4"/ 144 = .67 rounded up to 1 Square Feet
Add those up and you arrive at a grand total of 50 square feet.
Here are the instructions how to measure your lineal feet.
If you look at you can see the drawing we did above. You would want to start with the piece that is 25" to the right of the sink and then move on to the next of 72" then to 81" then to the piece that is on the left side of the stove, 24" and 25". The next is the island you will have to add four edges to make sure you get the entire island so you would want to enter 30", 30", 36" and 36".
72"+81"+25"+24"+25"+30"+30"+36"+36"=359"
Take 359"/12" to get a grand total of 30 lineal feet.
Please note, most granite companies include the lineal foot of edging for the backsplash. So don't enter this in unless you know they charge for the polishing of the backsplash.
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